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Preller should have fired Black in the offseason

Jake Roth-USA TODAY Sports

I'm surprised to see just how indecisive A.J. Preller has been.  He should have fired Black in the offseason and chosen the guy that he wanted managing his new deeply flawed team from the beginning. He had plenty of time to evaluate Black and study his in-game decisions during the second half of last season and the entire Winter and Spring. What took him so long to figure out that Black wasn't the right fit?  Before Preller was even hired President Mike Dee tasked the GM who would follow Josh Byrnes with evaluating Black's place in the organization.

For a guy like Preller that supposedly always has a back up plan, I'm also shocked he doesn't have a replacement immediately ready to take Black's place.  Even when a new Interim Manager is named in the next day or so, Preller doesn't plan to hire a permanent manager until the the season is over.  No contingency plan when the sh_t started to hit the fan about 2 weeks into the season?  Maybe get back on the phone A.J.

Preller says he hasn't given up on this team, but he can't be so naive to think that they'll make a playoff run right?  I mean, they could, but I'll be more shocked than if I stuck a fork into an outlet.  I'm bummed that this team hasn't turned out the way that the Padres marketing department sold it to fans in the offseason, I really am, but these guys don't look like winners.  A.J. traded a lot of talent and spent a lot of the ownership's money and they don't look any closer to competing every year, let alone this one and that's on Preller, not Black.  He should have made this decision long ago, but I guess it's a case of better late than never.